Journalists killed in Mexico City

MEXICO CITY – Two women from the world of Mexico City journalism were abducted and slain, their naked, bound bodies found Thursday in a field behind a cemetery.

Although dozens of journalists have been killed, kidnapped or threatened as part of Mexico’s spiraling violence, this appears to be the first time media employees have been slain in the relative safe harbor of Mexico City.

It was not immediately known whether the attacks on the women were related to their work. The treatment of the victims followed the pattern of hits ordered by drug gangs.

The dead women were identified by authorities as Ana Marcela Yarce Viveros, a veteran reporter who helped found the scrappy news magazine Contralinea, and who more recently took charge of its public relations department; and Rocio Gonzalez Trapaga, a former reporter for Mexico’s dominant television broadcaster, Televisa.

Gonzalez was working as a freelance reporter, Contralinea said; other reports said she recently ran a money exchange at the Mexico City airport and on Wednesday withdrew a large sum of cash.

The bodies of the women, both said to be in their 40s, were found Thursday in a working-class section of Mexico City.